Twists and Turns
by NYC.Always
Summary: When investigating a rape/murder, Olivia meets a girl that reminds her of herself. Can Olivia help the girl through the pains of her past, present and future or will Olivia fall into the darkness of her own past? It's set present day, but Elliot never left.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So this is my first fic and I hope it's okay. I've had this idea bugging me for a while and I finally wrote it down. I have a pretty good idea where this is going, but I am always open to suggestions ****. There is a bit that's a little bit graphic and I've rated the fic M for safety but, let's be honest, you all watch SVU so it should be okay, either way I've marked it so you can avoid it if you want. So, yeah, thanks for giving this fic a shot **

**Disclaimer: If I owned SVU would I be writing fanfics or awesome episodes? Think about it. **

Olivia pulled up to the apartment building with a knot in her stomach. One raped and murdered, another raped and seriously injured, Olivia prayed to God the girl would make it through. She climbed the stairs to apartment 4B, the paramedics had already left leaving CSU to scour the room for any indication of the perp.

A crime had clearly been committed in the apartment. Along the hallway entering the apartment the furniture was knocked out of place. The living room was in complete disarray. The originally cream carpet was stained with a large pool of blood in the centre of which lay a woman, lifeless. She had light brown hair to her shoulders and dark green eyes. From her abdomen protruded a pocket knife, causing the scene to appear even more grotesque. Her right hand appeared to be reaching to the end of the couch beside her as if to pull herself away.

Olivia walked a few steps to the breakfast bar that over looked the living room. Behind the bar lay another pool of blood, this one more irregular, not as if it had bled out of a lifeless body, but as if someone had been struggling, moving. Looking at the bench on her left, Olivia noticed the phone off the hook. "Hey guys, take a picture of this will you?" she called as two crime scene techs rushed over to do so.

Elliot and Melinda made their way to Olivia. "I would say that the cause of death is the stab wound but there is also a possibility that she may have been asphyxiated, I'll let you know more when I get back to the lab." Melinda informed them both. As she turned to leave they both muttered thanks and turned to each other.

Olivia's eyebrows furrowed looking at the scene. "What are you thinking?" Elliot asked studying her face for some clue into her thoughts.

"I'm not sure, well not until I get the witness statement, but run through this with me." Elliot followed her to the door. "Okay, so he enters through the front door, there's no forced entry so someone let him in," she began.

"It must have been the mother, because she was attacked first," Elliot interjected.

"Right," Olivia continued, "So the mother opens the door and backs up the hallway, she trips, or he pushes her down, rapes her then kills her. The daughter hearing the noise comes out from the study behind the breakfast bar sees the attacker and goes for the phone he pulls her away and rapes her. She fights back, gets something out of the open draw and hits him with it."

"Crime scene hasn't found anything yet, he must have taken it with him."

"Or, she threw it. See what's wrong with the blood pattern Elliot?"

Elliot walked around the stain, "This bit, right here," he said pointing at one of the edges, "It's like she's slammed her arm down."

"Exactly, which means," Olivia trailed off as she peered at the crack under the breakfast bar, "Whatever it was it's under there." She grabbed a pair of tongs from the draw and manoeuvred until she found what she was looking for, "Aha!" she exclaimed as she withdrew a small carrot peeler with small scrapes of skin in it, "And now we have his DNA."

"Her name is Melanie Daniels, 16." Olivia told the nurse.

"Yes of course she's just down here, she's not awake yet but the medication should wear off soon"

"Thank you"

Olivia walked into the room and looked at the girl on the bed. Her long, dark brown hair surrounded her face and body, almost reaching her waist. Her skin though pale in sickness seemed as though it was usually tan. Her eyes flickered open revealing a deep green.

"Hey sweetie, I'm Detective Olivia Benson, how are you feeling?" Olivia asked as the young girl in front of her regained consciousness.

The girl's eyes shot open as soon as she heard the voice, her wide eyes surveyed the room for a brief moment until she asked, "W-where am I?"

Olivia had expected the uncertainty, "You're at the hospital. You were severely injured. Do you remember anything about the night it happened?"

The girl nodded and shielded emotion replied, "My mother's dead isn't she?"

Olivia nodded fighting back tears for the girl: she hated this part, "I know this is hard, but I need you to tell me everything you remember about that night." **(So yeah, this next bit is a little graphic sorry, just skip to the next bold bit if you'd rather avoid it.)**

She nodded again, swallowing her fears she took a deep breath and started, "I was in the study doing assignments when I heard a knock on the door. Mum answered it and was talking to the man, next thing she says is, 'now come on I've done everything,' he said something about taking what was his and I heard her scream. He covered her mouth but not soon enough. I ran out of the study and froze in the doorway. I couldn't think, I just stood there. When h-he stabbed my mother I snapped and ran for the phone, but before I could reach it he pulls me down to the ground. I kicked him as hard as I could and tried to get away, he grabbed my thighs, licked his lips and muttered something. I screamed for him to stop, but he f-forced my legs open with his knees and…" she started shaking.

"He raped you." Olivia finished

"Yes. He, um he told me that if I was good to him, he would let me live, he told me to lick me off of him. I almost threw up at the thought. I turned my head away, but he grabbed my cheek. That's when I grabbed something, a carrot peeler I think, and I just swung it at him. He jumped back and yelled, then he pulled out a knife and, that's the last thing I remember." **(It ends here ****)**

"Honey, he stabbed you, but he missed your organs, the paramedics arrived just in time. You're going to be sore for a while. But you'll be fine."

Melanie gave a wry smile, "Well that's something at least." They sat in silence for a moment, "Um, Detective Benson?"

"Call me Olivia."

"Olivia, what day is it?"

"It's Wednesday, you were out for three days, the hospital should release you on Friday."

Melanie's voice was laced with sarcasm, "Great, just in time for the French test."

Olivia grinned for a moment. Her face returned to its usual gentle seriousness when she spoke again, "We still need to find a next of kin for you."

"Um, yeah good luck. I don't know who my father is and my mother is an only child and her parents passed away a while ago."

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't be, alone is not new for me," her eyes widened again, "Does this mean I'll have to go into foster care? Oh please no."

"Hold on calm down, if we don't find a next of kin then eventually, yes, you will have to go into foster care, however we can keep you in our custody and you can stay at the precinct while we are looking."

Melanie thought for a moment, "So what you're saying is give you someone to look for… Okay, well my mother had this friend, Leyla, I never knew her last name, but she treated me the same way mum did."

Olivia smiled, the girl was smart, "Okay , we'll look for Leyla, in the mean time you can stay in the precinct. I have to go now but I'll be back to talk to you later."

Melanie nodded, a faint smile on her lips, "Thank you."

**A/N I have the next chapter typed and ready to go. Should I continue with the story, I promise it does get more interesting, but anyway let me know.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So here's the second chapter as my Christmas present to you ****. Thanks for all of your support, your reviews and subscriptions make my day! **

**Disclaimer: Yep… Don't own it.**

Olivia sat at her desk frustrated. It had been almost a week and the only lead they had on the Daniels case had an airtight alibi. There had been no DNA hits in the system and it was starting to look hopeless. She got up put on her coat and decided to look at the crime scene again and see if anything popped out. "I'm going to the crime scene El, you coming?" as if he had heard nothing better in his life, Elliot jumped up and followed her out the door.

Twenty minutes after they arrived, Olivia was still pacing around the living room of apartment 4B. "Come on Liv, there's nothing here."

"We're missing something Elliot, I know it." After a few seconds staring at the mantelpiece she noticed something unusual, "There are no pictures."

"You're right," Elliot walked around the house and came back, "The whole house and not one 'mother daughter' picture."

"Hold on a sec, check the cupboard under the sink," she called as she ran out to the laundry. A moment later Olivia returned with two bottles of whisky as Eliot was pulling bottles of cheap vodka from behind the cleaning products, "I found this behind the washing machine."

"If we went through the whole house, how much do you think we would find?"

"I don't even want to think about it."

"Hey Liv are you okay? I mean, I know this must remind you of your mother."

Olivia stiffened, her eyes darkened slightly, burying her pain a little more, "It does, I just hope to God that my hunch as wrong. Maybe… maybe she was a happy drunk?" Olivia asked hopefully as she started to lose control.

Elliot pulled her into a tight embrace until she calmed down, knowing it was exactly what she needed.

As much as she needed Elliot she still felt awkward accepting help and so she pulled away, "I, um, I have to go pick up Melanie from the hospital, she's being discharged today."

Elliot nodded and they headed to the car.

Olivia dropped Elliot off at the precinct and drove to the hospital. She couldn't stop thinking about the alcohol and hoping that Melanie hadn't suffered the way that she had. From the small amount of time she had spent with Melanie, she could see a lot of herself in her. Like her ability to hide pain and emotion, her almost professional demeanour when it comes to past experience. Olivia just hoped that the girl would be strong enough to find a good path in life and not follow the one of so many rape victims to paranoia and alcohol. Olivia made a mental note to make sure Melanie saw a therapist, and a good one.

"So when you are discharged you are to take these twice a day to prevent infection and absolutely no strenuous physical activity, understand?" Doctor Phillips asked, handing over the pill bottle. At Melanie's agreement he added, "It means you'll get out of gym class," with a wink, which caused Melanie to smile.

Olivia, who had been leaning against the door post, chimed in, "Sounds good to me, though, I always liked gym."

Melanie's face lit up at the sight of Olivia and grinned as she joked, "Come to break me out of jail?"

"Is there a reason you should be there?" Olivia retorted with a grin.

"Detective, if you would just follow me I need you to sign some paperwork releasing Melanie into your custody until she reaches the precinct. Your captain has already signed the papers regarding the precinct."

"No worries," As she walked out the door Olivia threw a pair of grey NYPD sweats at Melanie, "I'll come back and get you in a sec, just get changed and grab your stuff. I vote we go get something to eat, you must be pretty sick of hospital food by now."

"That sounds amazing!" Melanie exclaimed, "Don't be too long, I'm starved."

The two girls sat at the closest table to the window in the little Italian restaurant across the street from the precinct. At 2pm on a Friday the place almost looked deserted. Melanie devoured her bowl of Fettuccine Cabonara while Olivia mulled over her ravioli. "So you're 16, you'd be in your Sophmore year?"

"I'm actually a Senior" Melanie replied, seeing the surprise on Olivia's face, elaborated, "When I was younger Mom always pushed me to be better. In her eyes I had to get 100%. With all the studying I had progressed so much that they had to move me up a grade and then again a couple of years later."

"Did you have any social life at all?" Olivia asked.

Melanie sighed, "No not really, once I started studying, reading more and more, I realised that school was really the only thing I had going for me. But that's not too bad; I mean you do get used to it."

Olivia's heart almost burst, she knew exactly what she meant: the loneliness, the isolation. Even if he hadn't been forced to study, she probably wouldn't have gotten along with the other kids very well anyway. "Why didn't you mention the alcohol?" Olivia almost whispered.

Fear flickered across Melanie's still bruised features, "I don't know what you are referring to." There it was that professionalism.

"The alcohol under the kitchen sink, hidden in the laundry and those are the only two places I looked. You know what I'm talking about." For a split second Olivia thought that she had gone too far.

"It didn't matter," Melanie muttered looking ashamed.

"Melanie, look at me. I know you don't want to talk about it, because if you don't talk about it you can pretend that it's not real. The abuse was real Melanie. Your x-rays show previously cracked bones,"

"Oh? How would you know? How do you know that she did anything at all? For all you know I fell. Either way it's over, no one did anything for me then, why start now? I'm past it, I'm fine. I've always been fine, there was nothi-"

She was starting to ramble hysterically, so Olivia ran around the table and delicately held both of her arms as she cut her off, "Melanie stop. Stop denying what happened because the sooner you accept it, the sooner you can work to recover from it," Olivia searched the young girl's eyes for any sign that she was getting through to her as she traced a scar on her hand, "This scar is it from a bottle?"

Melanie sobbed, everything around her seemed to crash down, "Y-yes."

"I thought so," Olivia replied as she steadied herself with a deep breath. She turned her hand so that Melanie the side of her hand. Running down the side of her thumb and index finger was an almost identical scar. "My mother was an alcoholic for as long as I could remember. I never talked about it either, never let anyone know. When I was 13 it got so bad that my grades started slipping. I got an F on an English paper and the school notified my mother, who was a university English lecturer. When I got home later that day she was sitting at the table, half way through a bottle of vodka. She called me in to the room and shoved the letter into my face screaming that I was a failure, a good-for-nothing nobody. That's when she lost her balance and dropped her bottle, it smashed everywhere. I guess that she blamed me for that too, because she came at me brandishing the jagged neck of the bottle. I got the scar pushing her away, not enough to hurt her, but just enough so that I had time to run out the door."

Melanie stood up, tears usually so well hidden were threatening to spill over the brim of her eyes, "Thank you for lunch," she said tensely as she walked away heading towards the precinct.

Olivia's shoulders slumped in defeat. As she stood up to follow Melanie she cursed herself under her breath: she had pushed her too far, too soon and in the wrong place. All she wanted to do was get through to the girl, to help her, like Olivia wished someone could have helped her at her age. It didn't look like Melanie would accept help anytime soon.

**A/N: There we have it folks. As always, I love to hear your opinion and constructive criticism is always welcome ****. **


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